Technology

Re-post from the New York Times. Alexa is the artificial intelligence voice of the Amazon Echo, and Cortana is the Microsoft equivalent. Now these two artificial voices are talking to each other…and so are their bosses! Here is the link to the article.

The Amazon Echo is a new kind of smart computer, that is controlled by your voice. It was launched in 2014 but has now really caught on. It is housed in a black tube. You use it by talking to it, like Siri on an iPhone. The word to wake the Echo, it’s called the […]

by Brian J. Coppola On November 24, 2014, I picked up my medication at my local Walmart pharmacy. For the first time I swiped the special label on the package using the ScripTalk Patient station. This type of label is called a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) label and has a tiny chip in it. […]

Here is the latest information listing all the health insurance companies that now offer the ScripTalk labels from their mail order pharmacies. Some pharmacies also provide ScripTalk at local pharmacies. (Check out the information below the list.) Unfortunately Walgreen’s developed their own talking prescription device. It is much less efficient in all ways. The […]

Here are Julie’s recommendations for apps that help you get around; on your feet, using a transit system or in a car…and how to know what is around you. On Your iPhone, Using Siri to Get Directions To Where You Want to Go The Maps app built into the iPhone provides turn-by-turn […]

Introducing – Julie Atkins Julie has a passion for assistive technology and believes it opens up a whole new world to people with vision impairment. Her favorite thing to teach is the iPhone with VoiceOver, and she makes it a point to keep up with the best apps for people with vision impairment. Julie agreed […]

Apple Features changing Lives Re-post from BuzzFeed News This article is mainly about Switch Control the Apple feature for people with hand and movement disabilities. The videos unfortunately have sub titles to compensate for the interviewee’s speech impairment, and the article had to be prodded to read successfully. So I have reprinted the […]

Bionic Eyes Improving for Virtually Blind (Repost from San Jose Mercury News) about research papers presented at the conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in February. This is nearly 3 months old, but interesting enough to re-post anyway.

Here is an important update for anyone who is interested in the Orcam system. The offer lasts until June 5: ~ A pre-launch version is now available at $2,500 (This is a similar price to a mid-range hearing aid) ~ The text reading component is up and running. It can be used for reading books, magazines, newspapers, […]

As detailed in the press release, DareDevil [which features a blind superhero] is available today and other Netflix originals will be available with audio description in the coming weeks. Hopefully, Netflix will continue this trend and make audio described movies and tv from other providers available in the near future. For those of you using an […]